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But hockey doesn’t matter right now when my stomach’s rumbling and I can’t ignore it any longer.
I’m that big guy. I need food.
Which means Ineedto deal with the woman who’s invaded my house.
Sighing, I stand up and shove my phone in my pocket, leaving the TV on, moving to the door and carefully opening it, listening, expecting to hear the snorting, grunting demon who didn’t break the skin on my ankle with his earlier antics, but who had left it aching with an array of scratch marks.
Asshole.
Even though I deserve the marks, deserve worse.
But I don’t hear any grunting or groaning or snorting or snotting or barking as I pad my way down the hall.
I don’t hear anything, and when I make it into the family room, I find it empty.
No smells of burning food.
No sign of the demon.
No Nova anywhere in eyeshot.
Probably taking the beast to the bathroom.
Only, when I peek outside, I don’t see her. Or the dog. And they’re not out front either.
I start to close the door, to keep the warm air in, and that’s when I see it—seethem.
Footsteps leading away from the house.
I look up at the sky, see dark clouds closing in, feel the cold air getting colder by the second. I think of the woman on the side of the road in wet sneakers and a fucking sweatshirt, the woman on my kitchen counter in sweatpants and that same hoodie.
No gloves. No boots. No jacket or beanie or thick wool socks.
And footsteps—one set of human, one set of tiny demon—heading away from my house, moving down the driveway, moving into the street.
Christ, is the womantryingto kill herself?
I whip around, march to the mudroom, grab my boots, my jacket, a fucking blanket because, God knows, the fucking woman—and her little dog too—are going to be popsicles by the time I find them.
The wind begins to blow by the time I make it to the bottom of the driveway, freezing cold gusts that slice through my layers.
The snow starts to fall by the time I make it to the next block.
Harder before I get to the end of the street and spy Nova’s car still stuck in the snowbank, mostly covered now.
But empty.
Relief wars with irritation.
She’s not dumb enough to attempt to dig herself out in this weather, or hasn’t succeeded and driven off, gotten into a worse accident somewhere down the road.
But then the worry is back, clawing through me.
Because she’s not here.
And if she’s not here…
Then she’s wandering around fuck knows where.
